On these occasions he
adopts humanitarian schemes, which are generally spoken of as welfare
work. It is the introduction of these schemes which look like a "slop
over" from science to charity, that makes it difficult for outsiders
to tell just what scientific management is and what it is not.
Mr. Frederick W. Taylor, the founder of scientific management, was
capable of scientific detachment in studying working men in relation
to the specific job. He was able more notably than others had been
before him, and more than many who have followed him, to extend the
impersonal state of mind, which he enjoyed in the study of inorganic
energy, to his study of human energy. Mr. Taylor's interest did not
emanate from sympathy with labor in its hardships; his interest was
centered in an effort to conserve and apply labor energy with maximum
economy for wealth production. Mr. Taylor awakened the consciousness
of industrial managers to the fact that the energy of workers like the
power of machinery is subject to laws. He demonstrated that it was
possible in specific operations to discover how the highest degree of
energy could be attained and the largest output result, without
loss through fatigue. He showed how efficiency could be enhanced by
transferring the responsibility of standards of work from the workers
to the managers. He formulated, as a business and industry doctrine,
that a definite relation between the expenditure of labor energy and
the labor reward could be established; that the wage incentive, if
applied to labor in relation to energy expended, would yield, or might
be expected to yield increased returns.
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